I'm in study mode

I just wanted to say that I am hunkering down and studying which is why I'm short on words right now. I've been a little more irritable than usual. I'd give details, but they're not fun.

My partner and I did our demo for our eye dissection (above) yesterday morning. We were supposed to demo (which takes 10 minutes) sometime between the hours of 8 and 9 a.m. I had been in lab late Monday night, which was when we rehearsed and got everything in our demo down pat within the required amount of time (we have a strict 10 minute time limit). Then I was in again at 7 just to brush up a few times before we actually did our presentation. I ran through once and got totally discombobulated on all the words I had to keep straight - lateral rectus, medial rectus, inferior rectus, superior rectus, superior oblique, and inferior oblique and then each of their motions - each has three. This is not unusually complicated, in fact, it's one of the easier demos so far. That one section just had so much overlap that it was hard on the tongue.

Anyway, I got nervous...and thus spent a good deal of time in the bathroom....and came back to lab at 7:45, ready to run through it one last time to get everything straight again in my head and on my tongue before our presentation.

Each of six preceptors hears and grades our demos. They all have different expectations and different reputations. Who should arrive just as I returned from the bathroom but Dr. X, the preceptor with the most - ahem - difficult - reputation. Surprise! He was ready for us to do our presentation for him! So, I buckled into business mode as best I could, but I was shaking so badly I could barely hold the probe to my ciliary ganglion. I said everything I needed to say, very shakily. David did beautifully on his half, though, and in the end we missed no points. But I could feel the adrenaline rush for the next hour and a half.

Demos are difficult. While one can learn the structures and their relationships perfectly well without a demo at the end, the demo adds the elements of performance and muscle memory to the equation. While it seems really weird in some ways to have to do a song and dance now (some people literally sing their demos), I suspect this won't be the last time I'll be performing and relying on muscle memory to do my job. I just hope I lose the shakes by the time I'm doing the real job.